Susanna Basia Linhart, née Terrell, was born in London on 16 February 1931.
At the beginning of the Second World War, she, like many other children, was obliged to leave London, which was being targeted by bombing campaigns.
At the age of 17 she started attending St. Martin's School of Art, one of the most prestigious art institutes in the United Kingdom. In 1949, she showed her work for the first time, at the New English Art Exhibition.
The following year, she married the nuclear physicist Jiri Linhart, with whom she had five children and, eventually, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
During the following years, the family moved to Geneva, where Susanna focused on portraits, and then to Italy, where she participated in many exhibitions, taught art in Rome and several times attended the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto.
In the 1970s the Linharts lived for long periods on a sailing boat, crossing the Atlantic twice and navigating the length and breadth of the Red Sea. Through her art, Susanna explored the themes of water, borders and the wind. The wooden panels she used for painting during that period were on one occasion used to mend a damaged hull, saving the boat from sinking, having struck a whale not far from the Azores.
After spending some time in Washington D.C. and Miami, the family returned to living on the boat, sailing the Caribbean, where Susanna continued to paint.
Towards the end of the 1970s, Susanna and Jiri returned to Europe, choosing to live in Paris, a city that came to be a source of strong emotions and artistic inspiration. The grey rooftops of the French capital were a balm after the iridescence of the sea.
In 1980, however, the Linharts moved to the South of France, where Susanna rediscovered warm, enveloping colours and participated in tens of shows. She spent the winter of 1985 in the Seychelles, producing numerous paintings and collages that were then exhibited in the only museum of modern art of the Indian Ocean.
In 1987, living on her own having separated, Susanna moved again this time to live with the sculptor Lynn Chadwick in Gloucestershire and the South of France. During her years in England, she produced her white paintings, which were then exhibited in an individual show at the Bridge Gallery in Bath.
In 1988, she began a series of abstract paintings that were subsequently shown at the CCA Galleries in London and Bath and in Japan. Over the following two years, Susanna held individual exhibitions at the Roupel Street Gallery in London and at Lézard Gallery in la Garde-Freinet, France.
In 1979, she moved to la Garde-Freinet, where she continued to live and work, with her partner, Andrew Packard, a marine biologist and artist. In 2006, Susanna held an individual show entitled Joie de voir, in which 52 oil paintings were exhibited by the municipality of La Garde Freneit.
Joie de voir I, a show of some 50 oil and watercolour paintings, was held in 2008. A retrospective of her work was organized that same year by the Enny Gallery in the Netherlands, which was followed in 2009 by an exhibition at the Linda Barker Gallery in London.
In 2012 Susanna begins a series of abstract musical paintings that were the focus of a 2014 exhibition in Paris.
The village of la Garde-Freinet and the surrounding region hold a strong cultural heritage and has been an artists’ hideaway for decades. François Truffaut found refuge in the early ’60s at Jeanne Morreau’s farm-house le Nid du Duc, writers like Serge Rezvani who lived next door to Maison Camp-Vif wrote the famous song “Le tourbillon de la vie” featured in the film ‘Jules et Jims.’ David Hockney painted his remarkable Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures.) nearby. Today still, many artists and writers fall under the charm of la Garde-Freinet and continue to make it their home.
Susanna spent 28 years living in la Garde-Freinet, tucked away in her charming hillside property "le Paradis". She had a studio at the house and painted daily the views, flowers, fruit, vegtables, fish & provencal elements of her life. Regular local exhibitions of her work kept her in the local spotlight with a constant demand for her paintings.
Susanna passed away peacefully on 14th of February 2021
The house and garden too are Susanna's creation: sources of beauty and inspiration
"Le Paradis"Susanna's home in the Foret du Maures